


get tough, grow up

by leetlebird



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Casual Sex, Character Study, M/M, the floor is emotional vulnerability and intimacy, what's a few handjobs between bros?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-28
Updated: 2017-12-28
Packaged: 2019-02-23 02:34:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13180548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leetlebird/pseuds/leetlebird
Summary: Derek doesn’t think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship, exactly, but he thinks it’s probably the beginning ofsomething.





	get tough, grow up

**Author's Note:**

> title from the song “Plot Twist” by Sigrid. welcome to the second ever work in the nursey/whiskey ao3 tag i guess.

The best thing about going on a tacky autumn hayride with the rest of the team is that Holster and Ransom smuggle a couple flasks of booze with them. Derek pours in enough to get drunk off the hot apple cider that he’d bought for $4.50.

The worst thing is that pretty much everyone on this team gets really sincere, like, _intimate_ , when they’re drunk. 

They catch a couple of Ubers back, since no one had been willing to take one for the team and be the designated driver, and Derek feels crowded between Chow and Bitty, with Tango squeezed in on Bitty’s other side.

Derek knows it’s been a good evening, and he knows being all tangled up with his friends is a good thing, but there’s still a part of him that freezes up when C leans against him, tucking their arms together. When Tango loudly asks them all for sex advice, and Derek tries not to think too hard about how the last person he had sex with was a guy. 

When Bitty gets all teary and starts mumbling about how nice everyone’s been. How being gay at Samwell has been easy, and how he’s a million times happier than he ever thought he’d be.

Derek smiles and pats Bitty’s head. He tells himself that he only feels like puking because he drank that spiked cider a little too fast. 

It’s only a little past nine P.M. when they get back to the Haus, but Derek’s pretty much ready to pass out. He knows Chow won’t mind if he sleeps on his floor. Probably won’t mind if Derek fell asleep in his bed either, knowing him.

The other Uber must have already dropped the rest of the team off, because Holster and Ransom are cuddling on the couch. In the kitchen, Derek sees Lardo pouring salsa into a small bowl, and he decides to stick around and try to steal some of her snacks before he goes upstairs. Whiskey’s playing some boring shooter game, sitting on the floor and chewing on a hunk of beef jerky. He’s the only guy on the team, other than a couple who had school shit to do, who hadn’t gone on the trail ride with everyone else.

It kind of pisses Derek off, the way Whiskey acts like he’s cooler than all of them. But -- whatever.

Derek plops down on the chair by the window and exhales loudly. He’s still kind of drunk. And he’s in a bad mood, kind of. All he knows is he wants to yell at Whiskey for being an asshole. All he knows is it’s pissing him off, the way Holster and Ransom can be all over each other and no one cares because they’re just bros.

He knows it’s stupid. He knows that, even if they weren’t just bros, no one on the team would have a problem with it. But he’s still pissed off and eager for a reason to be somewhere else, so he jumps out of his chair when Whiskey gets up to leave.

Derek follows Whiskey out the door. He doesn’t know what he’s planning on doing, exactly; it’s not like he’s actually going to yell at the kid for skipping out. He shouldn’t care about that in the first place. 

“What’s up?”

As far as greetings go, it should be inoffensive, but something about the way Whiskey says it makes Derek’s heart beat faster, his jaw clench. He flexes his fingers for a second, moving his anger away from himself. “I was gonna check -- if you don’t really have anywhere to be, you could stick around and hang out with the team. It’s been awhile, you know? We’ll probably start a Mario Kart thing pretty soon.”

Whiskey pulls this face, eyebrows lifting derisively and mouth turning down, like fucking Mario Kart is beneath him or something. “Thanks, but I’m headed across the street. Next time, maybe.”

Derek wonders, not for the first time, how the fuck a hockey player can willingly spend so much time with a bunch of lax douchebags. But whatever’s going on in Whiskey’s head isn’t any of Derek’s business, and he doesn’t actually care what Whiskey does tonight, and he’s starting to sober up just enough to feel embarrassed for following Whiskey out here in the first place. 

It’s not like Derek even has anything to say to him.

Anyway, Whiskey already seems bored of the conversation. “Sweet. Have fun or whatever,” Derek says. He leans back against the doorway and lifts one hand in a half-sarcastic wave.

Whiskey gives him a weird look but doesn’t answer. He turns around and keeps walking.

  


  


  


  


  


  


  


  


They’re walking back from class, by the river where it’s easy for conversation to slip into the personal too quickly, when Dex adds, off-handed, “I need to be more like you. You don’t care about anything.”

Derek laughs. He doesn’t think it’s noticeable, the way he freezes up for half a second.

  


  


  


  


  


  


  


  


He almost comes out when he’s watching Star Wars with Chow and Holster, mostly because he’s bored. Derek doesn’t like sci-fi, not really, and he’s so distracted when he looks up and Han Solo is flying the spaceship thing that he almost blurts out, “I’d do him,” just to have something to say.

Derek doesn’t say it, though. He used to be scared. Now he just feels like he’s waiting for a good reason, which probably means that he’s still scared, just hiding it from himself better.

“Hey, Whisk,” Holster says, and Derek glances over his shoulder. “Wanna join us? You only missed the first half.”

Whiskey is coming from the kitchen. He’s wearing a grey polo and khakis, and Derek’s brain gets stuck for a second on how narrow his hips are. “Nah,” Whiskey says, coming around the couch to grab his backpack off the floor. “Just needed this. I don’t really like movies anyway.”

“You don’t like movies,” Holster repeats.

Whiskey shrugs a little. “Well, you know. Whatever.” He walks back to the kitchen, and Derek sneaks another look at the place where his waist meets his hips. 

He’s not really sure why he’s looking, because as far as he knows he’s not harboring any sort of attraction toward Whiskey, not in any particular way. 

It’s probably just something about those pants.

  


  


  


  


  


  


  


  


Three weeks later, in an empty practice room in the music wing, Derek discovers that it wasn’t just the pants. He tastes his own blood where Whiskey bit down too hard, and he shoves his hands up under Whiskey’s shirt, tries not to dig his fingernails in when Whiskey drags the zipper down on Derek’s jeans.

“I -- oh -- god, I --” Derek hears himself saying as Whiskey jerks him off, slow and tight against the wall. He doesn’t know what he’s trying to say, and he bites down hard on his lip, right on the spot where Whiskey already broke the skin, until he comes.

It’s gross, sort of. They’d gone from studying to whatever _this_ is without really talking about it, or planning for it, and they don’t have anything to clean up with. After a second, Whiskey wipes his hand on the carpet, grimaces when his hand comes away gritty. 

Through his post-orgasm haze, Derek sees Whiskey raise one eyebrow at him. It takes him a second to understand, but then Derek says “yeah” and Whiskey pushes his own joggers down. Derek doesn’t know why he’s surprised that Whiskey’s wearing briefs, but he is, and then he nudges Whiskey’s hand out of the way so he can take over.

Derek pictures himself getting on his knees, swallowing Whiskey down, but he doesn’t move to try it, just collars Whiskey with one hand and pumps with the other. Whiskey doesn’t say anything, but Derek can hear him breathing hard, can see the ligaments in his jaw twitching, even as his facial expression doesn’t change much.

When it’s over, Derek thinks about doing what Whiskey did, wiping his hand off on the carpet. He wonders how often the carpet in here gets cleaned, and he dries his hand on his own shirt instead, even though it’s gross as hell and leaves a wet spot. 

“Nice,” Whiskey says. He’s only a little out of breath. Derek’s eyes keep catching on his face, in different places. The hollows of his eyelids, his bottom lip, the flush of his skin. “We should do this again sometime.”

Derek’s stomach feels off, somehow, like it’s lodged sideways in his body. He feels like he made a mistake. “Are you --?”

The look on Whiskey’s face cuts him off, which is just as well. He doesn’t know where that question was going.

“This stays in here, right?” Whiskey adds, shrugging like it’s just another secret. Just another example of things getting out of hand when hockey bros spend too much time together. His eyes are steady, with nothing behind them.

A few too many seconds pass before Derek answers, and he watches as Whiskey’s eyes change, a flash of terror that’s off his face almost instantly.

And Derek grins lazily, offering a shrug of his own. His -- discomfort, or something like it, has passed. He should feel guilty for only feeling better once he’s seen that Whiskey’s not as chill as he pretends to be, but Derek usually doesn’t feel guilty, and he isn’t making an exception now. “Sure, bro,” he says, and Whiskey moves to bump Derek’s fist like they don’t have the leftover residue of each other’s come on their hands. 

Derek doesn’t think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship, exactly, but he thinks it’s probably the beginning of _something_.

  


  


  


  


  


  


  


  


He has this place on campus. Along the walking path that goes around the Pond, a bench that’s far enough down the trail that few people camp out there. There’s a tree that stretches out around that bench, its branches wide and expansive, that always makes Derek feel quieted in some way.

Now the leaves are a wash of brown and burnt red, and he sits sideways on the bench with his legs out in front of him. He’d brought an anthology of naturalistic essays for the Environmental Lit class he’s in, but in reality he’s enjoying the hot sun on his face, the bite of a late autumn wind on his hands. He thinks he might dig around on Spotify for some indie or folk music to fit the mood, but then again there’s something about the silence. 

He stays until it’s too cold to justify staying outside. When he finally pulls his phone out and checks his notifications, he doesn’t have as many as he expected. There are some Washington Post updates that he knows he won’t be able to read.

The line between a settled inner calmness and an emptiness that swallows everything is a thin one, at least after Derek spends so many hours alone. He tries to distract himself by shaping it all into words, composing lines he doesn’t think he’ll ever write down. They sound good in his head, though, and it’s not like he’s going to talk about it.

When he finally makes it back to his dorm, Derek’s nose is freezing and he’s only thinking about how good a mug of hot chocolate will taste. He’s all out of booze at the moment, but his roommate has some rum that he’ll probably be willing to share. God knows Derek shares his shit enough.

Derek balances the mug carefully on the mattress next to him. He scrolls through Instagram for a few minutes. He gets as far as opening Chow’s contact on his phone, but he doesn’t know what he even has to say, so he puts his phone down and grabs the mug.

  


  


  


  


  


  


  


  


Whiskey doesn’t give any visible sign that things are different between them, so Derek tries to do the same. He gets through an hour and a half study session with Whiskey and Chowder, who are both in the same sociology course as him, and it’s almost unnerving how normal Whiskey is. He gives just the same amount of eye contact; he keeps that same half-bored, half-judgmental expression on his face.

After they finish studying, C packs up his backpack and says he’s going back to the Haus. “Wanna head over with me?” he asks, inviting both of them but mostly looking at Derek. 

“Uh, later,” Derek says. “Gotta drop some shit off at the library, you know.”

“Whiskey?”

Whiskey looks up. “Same,” he says, nodding in Derek’s direction. “Maybe another time.”

And there’s nothing in his delivery to make Derek suspect he’s faking it, that Whiskey doesn’t really have to stop by the library, but he knows it’s a lie anyway.

  


  


  


  


  


  


  


  


They jerk each other off in the woods behind the library, Whiskey batting Derek’s hand away when he tries to take off Whiskey’s shirt. The only sounds are Derek’s panting and the wind rustling through the dead leaves. And Derek realizes -- this isn’t going to be a one-time thing.

Derek bends his neck to bite at Whiskey’s shoulder through his shirt, and Whiskey leans away.

  


  


  


  


  


  


  


  


Derek’s huddled in a sleeping bag under four layers of blankets, staring up at the stars. Dex, Chow, Lardo, and Bitty are all lying next to him. The night is beautiful, hovering over them like God or something, but it’s way too cold for this.

“I’m probably g-goin’ back in soon,” Bitty says. “Anyone else?”

“I think it’ll be okay,” Lardo says, almost an apology. “Do you wanna get closer? Huddle for warmth?”

Bitty looks like he’s thinking about it. When Chowder lifts the corner of his blanket in invitation, Bitty smiles, eyes crinkling, and maneuvers his sleeping bag closer.

They roughhouse for a while, and find patterns in the stars, and Chow starts a round of get to know you questions. Dex practically short-circuits when Derek asks him to pick his favorite Fleetwood Mac song, naming six different choices before everyone starts laughing at him.

“Just admit it’s Landslide and be done with it,” Derek says, because he’s heard Dex listen to that song probably twenty times by now. “Basic white girl.”

Dex throws a handful of grass at him.

“What’s yours, Nursey?” Bitty asks.

Derek can’t tell if he’s asking because he wants to know or if he’s just trying to diffuse the tension. “I don’t know, maybe Tusk,” he says, even though he knows his favorite is Dreams. He doesn’t really know why he’s lying.

Then Chowder moves the conversation to which Disney villain each of them would be, and Derek’s laughing so hard he’s snorting, and he feels like he’s in love with all of them, a little. He’s probably only thinking that because he’s never been in love at all, but whatever.

“Who do you _want_ to be?” Bitty asks a few minutes later, when they’re more tired and everything is moving slowly. Lardo is squeezed up against Derek’s right side, and he can feel Dex’s knees digging into his left. Bitty’s voice is sleepy, quiet, and more innocent than Derek feels equipped to deal with.

He closes his eyes and burrows closer to Lardo, feeling her voice vibrating across his skin as she talks about independence, about balance and insight and confidence. Her voice is slower than usual, scratchy in the night.

Derek listens to their hope, that unguarded honesty that can only come out when it’s dark, and he feels himself falling asleep. “I’m good, I’m right where I need to be,” he mumbles when C says it’s his turn, and he’s too tired to figure out if any of them believe him.

  


  


  


  


  


  


  


  


The temperature drops another ten degrees overnight, and Dex wakes them up at one in the morning so they can drag their sleeping bags back to the Haus for a less outdoorsy kind of sleepover. The porch lights are on at the lax house across the street, and guys are playing croquet in the front yard, barefoot and drunk.

“Fucking christ, were you camping?” one of them yells, voice hoarse with alcohol. Derek tries to ignore the anger that prickles under his skin, an automatic response whenever a lax bro gets cute with him. 

“Took the L on that one, huh,” another guy says. Derek looks over and sees Whiskey behind the dude who just spoke up. He’s got that glazed over drunk look, green checkered shirt buttoned all crooked, and he’s the only one who looks cold.

Bitty puts a hand on Dex’s arm and nods toward their own driveway. Derek hadn’t even noticed that Dex was raring for a fight, and he watches as Bitty leads Dex and Chowder up the driveway to the Haus. 

“Hey, you coming?” Lardo asks, her voice quiet and level next to him. Across the street, one of the lax dudes trips on a croquet ball and falls on his ass, and the others shout out their laughter. Whiskey laughs along with them, and Derek’s skin feels too tight.

He turns and makes a sleepy-eyed face at Lardo. “Yeah. Cuddle with me?”

“Hell no, Nurse,” she says, and he laughs.

He glances behind him, once. Whiskey’s leaning against a lax bro’s shoulder, apparently concentrating hard on whatever it is he’s saying. He almost falls down when the guy walks away, stumbling for a second before he follows the lax bros down the lawn.

Derek feels Lardo’s grip on his elbow tighten, and he knows he must have flinched. He doesn’t say anything, and Lardo doesn’t either.

  


  


  


  


  


  


  


  


Derek’s car is parked in an empty Denny’s lot, all the windows darkened as far as he can see. It’s just past one A.M. His pants are on the floor. 

He’d laugh at himself, but he’s distracted by Whiskey’s hand on him. It’s only been a few minutes since they started, and Derek’s already on the edge of coming. He wants to draw it out, and not just because of his pride. Derek’s always liked sex best when he can linger, right in the middle of it. 

So he moves Whiskey’s hand away, rubbing his thumb over Whiskey’s palm automatically, a silent assurance that this isn’t really a rejection. Whiskey jerks his hand away. 

Too personal -- Derek forgot, for a second.

Whiskey’s still wearing his shirt even after Derek pulled his own off, but he’s flushed and bright-eyed, his hair messy right above his forehead. There’s still something about his face, something _still_ ; his mask of nonchalance is unmoved even after all this.

Derek wants to fuck Whiskey up a little. He wants to see him react, or maybe just to see him in the first place. The problem is that Whiskey doesn’t like it when Derek touches him anywhere that’s not his dick, and Whiskey’s super fucking boring when he comes. 

Still, Derek can try.

He runs his hand over the front of Whiskey’s khakis, lingering over where he can feel how hard he is. He pushes his palm in, just a little, and hides his smirk when Whiskey twitches his hips forward. “You like that?” Derek says, letting his voice go all hoarse. And he’s an idiot, because he knows Whiskey hates when Derek talks during sex.

But Whiskey isn’t pulling away. He’s looking at Derek. He looks wrecked -- he looks like he _wants_ something, and Derek’s throat is suddenly dry.

“Okay,” Derek says quietly, just to say something at all, and he shifts around so he has a better angle to get at Whiskey’s pants. Whiskey moves with him, letting Derek unzip him and tease his pants carefully past his knees, where they stay all bunched up. He waits for Whiskey to tug his underwear down too.

Derek instinctively glances out the window of the car, but it’s pitch black. He can see tiny droplets of condensation forming on the windows, and he can see his own face reflected back at him. He doesn’t know what he sees there. It’s out of focus, a blur.

“Ugh,” Whiskey says. He might be embarrassed to be on his back for Derek; they’ve never been like this before. He moves to knock one of his knees into Derek’s side. “Hurry up.” 

“I’ve got you,” Derek says, and he plants his hands on Whiskey’s naked thighs. The muscles there are hard, pulsing against Derek’s palms, and his thumb brushes over one square inch of inner thigh that’s unbelievably soft. Automatically, Derek digs his thumb in harder, and Whiskey lets out a high-pitched gasp that’s almost a whine.

Derek likes that, so he shoves Whiskey’s thighs apart, pushing his fingers into that same place again once Whiskey’s legs are where he wants them. Watches as Whiskey’s eyes close for a few seconds, almost rolling back, face pinching together.

He’s never seen Whiskey like this. And when he starts stroking one hand up and down Whiskey’s dick, slower than he usually does, he’s never heard Whiskey make noises like this either -- helpless and wheezing, almost painful. 

When Whiskey comes, hot and all over Derek’s hand, Derek loses himself for a moment and kisses him, his hands drifting up to hold Whiskey’s face. Whiskey’s mouth tastes warm, thick with spit and opening easily for him, and Derek doesn’t know why Whiskey’s letting him do this. 

Derek pushes his tongue into him, everything heavy and wet and hot. He strokes Whiskey’s jaw, and Whiskey doesn’t kiss him back. 

“Uh,” Derek says eventually, and uses one of the wipes he brought along to clean off his hand, Whiskey’s thighs, and the side of Whiskey’s face where Derek shouldn’t have touched him. “Do you want --” 

But as soon as he leans away, trying to give Whiskey some space, Whiskey crashes forward. He scrambles up to follow Derek across the backseat, and when Whiskey pulls him into a rough kiss, Derek opens up for him right back.

He’s cautious, aware in every inch of himself that Whiskey’s never kissed him before, but if Derek wants this to go slow, Whiskey wants the exact opposite. His tongue is sloppy in Derek’s mouth, fingers scrabbling at Derek’s neck in some kind of desperation. It seems like Whiskey can’t get close enough, pushing against Derek and practically climbing into his lap, so Derek moves his arms around Whiskey’s waist, uncertain about how he should touch him. Whether he should touch him at all.

Whiskey tightens his arms around Derek’s neck and groans into it, so Derek’s pretty sure he’s doing it right. He still hasn’t come yet himself, and his dick is hard and chafing against Whiskey’s knee, but Whiskey doesn’t seem to be thinking about that and Derek wants to see where this is going.

So he just leans into it when Whiskey really does scramble onto Derek’s lap. Whiskey is kissing and biting at his neck, in all the places that usually make Derek either moan or giggle, depending on his mood. Not that Whiskey has any reason to know that. Derek lets Whiskey do what he wants, moving his body to where he thinks Whiskey needs it, but he doesn’t feel quite connected to what’s happening.

“Please, please,” Whiskey says.

“Yeah, I got you,” Derek murmurs against Whiskey’s skin, because his mouth is trapped there anyway. He feels Whiskey shiver, and he keeps shivering for longer than Derek understands. 

“Hey--” he tries again, cupping his hand carefully against the back of Whiskey’s head. He’s never thought of Whiskey as small before, but now -- he doesn’t know. It feels different.

There’s a pause, and then Whiskey jerks his neck to the side, his knee digging into Derek’s thigh as he pushes away and back over to the other side of the car. “Whatever,” Whiskey says, rubbing a hand over his face. “Let’s go now.”

Derek thinks about leaning forward. Doesn’t do it, though. What would he do, anyway? “Sure,” he says, and climbs back into the driver’s seat. Whiskey doesn’t move to join him in the front, just sprawls out across the backseat. “Yeah, we can go.”

  


  


  


  


  


  


  


  


“Fuck off,” Whiskey says when Derek tries to talk to him after practice.

  


  


  


  


“Fuck _off_ ,” Whiskey says when Derek tries to sit by him in the library.

  


  


  


  


“Are you doing okay?” Ransom asks, all captain-y. Derek is staring into his locker. Maybe he’s been staring for too long. His mind is kind of blank.

“Chyea,” Derek says, and pulls off his shirt.

  


  


  


  


“I don’t want to talk to you.” Whiskey pulls back, jaw tight. “Jesus, get over it.”

Derek doesn’t even know what he wanted, this time. _I think we both need some serious therapy,_ he could say, but doesn’t.

  


  


  


  


“Nursey, are you okay?” 

It’s Chow, and his hand is hovering awkwardly like he’d been thinking of putting it on Derek’s knee and changed his mind. His eyes are all warm and caring, in that way that makes Derek feel like nuzzling into C’s shoulder but also like he needs to run away.

“Yeah, dude, I’m fine,” Derek says, his mouth automatically positioning itself into a grin. Ha, ha, you were so off-base to think for even a second that something could be wrong with me. No need to ever ask again.

Chow pulls his hand back, but his eyes stay on Derek’s face. Still open, still creating an opening.

“Well.” Derek can’t meet Chow’s eyes anymore, so he looks at the wall next to his head. They’re in a hallway down by a few classrooms. Anyone could walk by, but Derek can’t think about that. “I guess I’m -- uh, I don’t know. I feel like I need someone to talk to.”

He doesn’t think he’s ever said anything like that before, and his pulse is so heavy that it’s just a dull roar in his ears. But he said it. 

He said it.

“Yeah,” Chow says, looking more worried than before. “We can do that. Wanna go somewhere more private? Like, now, or are you busy? We could probably go to my room. Or Jerry’s. Or somewhere else, if you want. What do you think?”

Derek’s light. He smiles so big it hurts his face, involuntary. “Now’s good.”

**Author's Note:**

> i don't have a playlist for this fic or this pairing specifically, but please help yourself to my [nursey playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/monstrosit/playlist/5b19dDYFAdUBeAq81KzTkh)!!!!
> 
> i hope that someone writes a third work in the nursey/whiskey tag and they actually get together 4 real, but alas. it wasn’t meant to be in this one.


End file.
